From my kitchen to yours

Tag Archives: Rosemary

This is recipe no. 3 from our “Italy, The Beautiful Cookbook” challenge. My husband chose this one, and I am so glad he did. Insanely simple, with incredibly familiar ingredients, this too, was a winner. The book says that this recipe is from Tuscany, but I am sure there are versions of this from every region in Italy.

I love rosemary. Rosemary is one of my favorite cooking herbs, thus I have an incredibly large bush on my balcony, and apart from using it in the kitchen, it smells divine. I think my favorite part is when I’m picking the leaves off the stem, and its sap imparts its beautiful, medicine-like aroma. During the cooking process your kitchen will smell incredible too, with all that delicious garlic and rosemary! After the pork is done, you finish the sauce with a nice, dry white wine. Classic Italian cooking, simple ingredients creating a masterful and superb dish. Easy enough for a weeknight if you have time, perfect for a Sunday roast, too.

So here’s what you’re going to need:

1 fresh rosemary sprig

6 garlic cloves, crushed

salt and freshly ground pepper

1 chine of pork, about 2 1/2 lbs (1.25kg)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1/2 cup (4 fl oz/ 125ml) dry white wine

Finely chop the rosemary leaves. Mix rosemary and garlic with salt and plenty of pepper. Rub the meat well with this mixture and tie it securely to the bone. Place the meat in a dutch oven or aluminum saucepan with the oil and butter. Bake in a preheated oven at 400F (200C) for 1 1/2 hours, turning frequently.

Untie the meat and remove the bone. Arrange meat in slices on a serving dish. Pour wine into the pan and bring to a boil, scraping up browned bits and season to taste. Serve this sauce with the meat.

When I was in college, I remember we had a friend over for dinner, well actually, he made dinner. He said he was a professional chef, and he made something similar to this. I remember thinking it was one of the most sophisticated things anyone my age had ever made for me. And back then, I thought it was so complicated! I was very, very impressed. So, recently I purchased this gorgeous piece of pork loin that comes from Spanish Black Pigs, which apparently are juicier and tastier than their pink counterparts.
It definitely didn’t disappoint. I decided to use some of my beautiful rosemary growing on my little balcony, and to stuff it with portobello mushrooms, spinach and ricotta. It was divine, and super moist and delicious. Easy too!

The hardest part is butterflying the loin, but I will add a link with detailed instructions!

So here’s what you’re going to need:

Serves 6

1 kg pork loin

3 sprigs of Rosemary

3 tbsp butter, softened

3 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

400 g frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and strained of all the water

100 g portobello mushrooms, finely diced

1 small package of ricotta cheese

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Preheat the oven to 190 C. Meanwhile, in a large sauté pan, add the olive oil and the garlic, cook over medium heat until fragrant. Add the spinach and mushrooms and raise the heat and cook until the mushrooms are softened, about 5 minutes. Take off heat and mix with the ricotta, salt and pepper. Set aside.

Now, butterfly your pork loin. You can see the technique here. Salt and pepper the loin, and spread a thin layer of the spinach mixture. Don’t worry if you have left over, you can keep this in the fridge and re-use it for empanadas, lasagna, cannelloni etc.

Now tie your loin, and place in a baking dish fatty side up. Rub generously with the butter, sprinkle on the salt, pepper and the rosemary. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 145 F. It will continue to cook when you take it out of the oven, so it will reach 150 F.

Yesterday at our market, we overdosed on these. We bought about 20 apricots, those fabulous flat peaches, which they call Paraguayos here, nectarines and blueberries. I was pretty certain we couldn’t consume all that fruit before it goes bad…..but that is us. We see things and we want them, thinking that we are going to go on a fruit fast or something. But not so, because well, you know about how much food I brought back from Switzerland.

Since Sundays are our official lazy days, I figured, why not make a galette? It is such an unfussy dessert, I love the free form crust, flaky yet consistent enough to hold all that fruit. I chose to make the dough with rosemary, because my little plant is doing quite well, and I love rosemary in savoury and sweet dishes. I also decided to fill it with apricots and blueberries. That way, I am sure none of our fruit will go bad.

This is really easy to make, feel free to add any other herbs to your dough to make it your own. And for these lazy summer days, nothing is nicer than a no-fuss galette with a glass of lemonade or iced tea.

Enjoy!

So here’s what you’re going to need:

For the galette:

Makes 2 disks

3 cups flour

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

16 tbsp butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes, chilled

2/3 cup ice water.

1 small sprig of rosemary

2 tbsp of sanding sugar

1 tbsp cream

Filling:

6 apricots, halved, and then slice the halves in two.

a handful of blueberries

In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the flour, sugar and salt. Mix on low-speed with the paddle attachment. Add the butter, and mix until incorporated, and looks like wet sand, but there are still some big chunks of the butter that are visible. Add the rosemary and mix.

Add the ice water all at once, and mix until incorporated. Don’t overmix. Gather the dough, and shape into two balls. Wrap in plastic and shape into disks. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Take out the dough, and roll out one of your disks to whatever shape you want, square, rectangle, round. Place on a baking sheet that is covered with parchment. Arrange the fruit in the style that you most like, and then fold up the sides. With a galette, you are the artist. If you only want a tiny little peek of what’s inside, make the borders 4-5 inches. If not, a good rule of thumb is stick to two inches.

Press some of the sanding sugar onto the borders of the dough, and sprinkle a little bit on the fruit. Brush the entire galette, fruit and all, with the cream. Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until golden brown.